


Resistance

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Alien Culture, Alien Education, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Earth is rubbish, Education, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Racism, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-16
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-08-31 10:43:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8575261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: Charlie thought his life was over two years ago when humans invaded, killed his parents and changed everything forever. But, much to his disappointment, his world kept spinning.Matteusz moved to Rhodia to get away from his parents. So far he's been politically clean all his life, but everything is set to change...In between their stories of a struggle against an unfair regime, the Traitor Prince of Rhodia and the inconsequential child from Earth fall in love.





	1. First Lecture

Rhodian lecture halls were enormous. Matteusz stepped inside, craning his head up to look at rows and rows of seating. Not too many people were here yet- it was still a good ten minutes before their teacher was due to arrive, so he sat down by himself and unloaded his belongings from his bag.

His first lecture. He couldn't say that he wasn't excited, because he was. He was so excited. He couldn't believe he'd been accepted, still, because Rhodians were known for being academic, and he was here studying an academic subject in a time where freedoms in Rhodia were being changed.

He drummed his fingers impatiently against his knee, keeping an eye on the steady stream of people wandering into the room. Everyone looked varying degrees of nervous, and at least a little bit tired. He was tired, too. Yesterday had been absolutely manic and now he was here, at the ungodly regular lecture time at the beginning of a week of nine. Nine in the morning after a weekend was unreasonable.

He noticed that one of the people coming in was headed up towards him, eventually choosing the seat directly next to his. Matteusz glanced around. Yup, still at least a hundred other empty seats that weren't right next to someone else.

"Good morning," the boy said with a smile, bringing all of his things out of his bag. Lots of brand new writing equipment to start university, Matteusz noticed. Lucky sod.

"Morning," he replied, debating whether it would be rude to move a few seats away. It probably would be, so he stayed put for the time being.

"You're human," the boy observed, and Matteusz moved his notebook so he could add another mark to the tally of people who had made that comment. This boy made number six, and it was only the second day.

"Yes. I am." He wondered if the boy was going to move away now- not that many people here seemed the least bit willing to befriend a human.

"I'm Charlie," he said, but his face betrayed his cheerful voice. He didn't put his hand out to shake it, but Matteusz had found that Rhodians didn't do that. "Don't expect me to do that human greeting."

"I wasn't expecting you to. I'm Matteusz." He bowed his head slightly, the way he'd seen Rhodians do with each other, and Charlie looked surprised but bowed back to him. "It's your planet, your culture, and your greetings," he continued, and Charlie looked even more surprised.

"Tell the human invaders that," he said. "I'd love it if they all thought that too."

Matteusz sighed. "If it is any consolation to you, I do not agree with what my people have done to you. Is cruel." Charlie just looked at him, and Matteusz knew he'd made quite the understatement.

"Be careful what they hear you say," he said, and then he turned away, back to his blank notebook. Matteusz just presumed he was making sure the conversation ended there.

The lecturer came in soon after that, anyway, so there was no more chance to talk. Matteusz shifted around to the front and started paying attention, because it was the first day and he really needed to learn this course. The Rhodians had a curious higher education policy, favouring low entrance requirements and promoting adaptation to university level learning. That meant that if he failed this, he failed out of the university and would probably have to go back home.

And that was one thing he didn't want. His parents had been so keen to have him out of the house that they'd paid for the long flight to Rhodia, and Matteusz had no desire to go back home. So he had to work hard, so that was why he sat through the long introduction to the course.

It was filled with references to the war, and the crushing defeat the Rhodians had faced, and all the hardships they had to go through now. The things that were happening to history in this age, the lecturer said, could taint it. Matteusz glanced around at the few other humans in the room, and they either looked disgustingly proud or incredibly sheepish and guilty. The ones who were proud of what they'd done to the Rhodians were the ones Matteusz hated.

They were the people who shouldn't even be here in this room. They had no right to exploit the system that they had so ruthlessly conquered. They shouldn't be here, endangering the lecturer's livelihood by grinning away as they took in everything she was saying, hoping she would say something purposefully inflammatory to the humans.

Matteusz couldn't stop himself from glaring at them, and at one point he noticed Charlie looking at him, then following the direction of his glare and frowning a little- not angrily, just...thoughtfully.

With the introduction over, the lecturer went straight into their elective options and what they meant, and then she started talking about deadlines and assignments and extra reading and everything else that came with education.

There was a hell of a lot to take in, but Matteusz did his best. He wrote everything down, got thinking about the choices he needed to make, and started looking around the room to see if there was anyone he could be friends with. He could go with some humans, but even humans treated him with a little disrespect because of his imperfect English and his Polish accent. He could try to be friends with a Rhodian, but on the whole, Rhodians hated humans without exception. Not that he blamed them, obviously. Maybe Charlie would want to be his friend- he had sat directly next to Matteusz, after all, and there had to be a reason for that.

He couldn't just ask outright if he wanted to be friends with him, but maybe he could ask what he thought about the different electives. Maybe he knew more about it or had some advice. He looked smart. When the lecturer had finished talking, he reached out and tapped Charlie on the shoulder, smiling. "Which electives do you think look best? Is hard to choose."

Charlie looked down at the sheet of paper they'd all been handed. "I'm taking extras in modern Quill history and then ancient Rhodian history," he said. "But you just do what you like the look of, honestly."

"I have no idea what any of this is," Matteusz said honestly. "They do not teach your history on Earth..." He barely knew who the Quill were, honestly, aside from knowing that they'd been almost wiped out for fighting back against human rule.

"You're here to learn," Charlie said, an edge of hardness to his voice. That had obviously annoyed him. "We're all here to learn." The 'even if you humans are trying to restrict our right to learn freely' went unsaid.

"I know." He sighed, looking down at the list and then ticking the same two boxes that Charlie had signed up for. They looked interesting, and at least he'd know someone in the class. He could look for some books on Quill history in the library, he was sure. He had to start his reading somewhere, and there would definitely be a good idea. It wouldn't do to be ignorant. He'd ask Charlie for recommendations, but he seemed rather unfriendly for someone who had willingly sat next to Matteusz. "I don't mean to be rude," he started. "But why did you sit with me if you don't want to talk to me?"

"I can move if you like," Charlie said with a frown. "You live in the room next to mine and I saw you last night. That's why I sat here."

"I was not asking you to move." Matteusz stretched out in his seat, long legs tapping against the chair in front of him. "Was just wondering." He shrugged nonchalantly.

"I won't be around in my room much, though," Charlie said with a sigh. "I have to see my mum a lot at home and she lives on the other side of the city."

"Why do you have to see her a lot?" Matteusz frowned. The way Charlie spoke, it sounded almost...rehearsed, like he was just saying lines from a script.

"She's very ill," he said, and he sounded so genuinely upset that Matteusz decided to leave it alone. It wasn't fair to push a painful subject when Charlie could just as easily ask why he wasn't at home often.

He just nodded mutely and started packing up, avoiding eye contact after probing at such a sensitive subject. Hopefully he hadn't just upset his only chance at a friend too much.


	2. Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charlie has to make a decision about how he treats Matteusz.

Charlie left his first class in a rush, bag strap clenched tight in his hand. He was rethinking his hatred of humans, and he hated himself for it. They'd taken everything away from him. Everything he held dear. He wanted to hate them for the rest of his likely very short, unhappy life. And he hated all of them. Not just the ones who directly wronged him, because in a way they were all responsible.

Matteusz, though...he'd bothered to learn a Rhodian greeting, the correct Rhodian greeting, and he seemed willing to actually learn a little about Rhodia's history. Charlie even wanted to say he couldn't be blamed for his lack of knowledge about their history, but that would go against everything he believed in. How dare a human come here and study their history without any knowledge of it?

His feelings seemed more confused than they had been in a long while, and that was really saying something considering what he'd been through since Earth took over.

He hurried back to his rooms, hoping that Matteusz wouldn't catch up and want to talk to him. He needed to sort through all of this mess. His feelings were all jumbled and he needed to make sure he knew what he was doing and saying before he had to say it.

Charlie set his belongings down neatly and perched his bed, staring at the floor and wondering what was even going on with him today. It was probably just stress. Stress was getting to be such a big problem for him now. He knew why and he knew that it wasn't going to end until his life did, but for some reason he couldn't stop himself from digging further in and refusing to let the humans win.

Even the simple act of being at university in the first place was rather rebellious. The Earth leaders would rather he just sat around looking pretty all day. But he refused to do that. Education was such a fundamental part of the Rhodian lifestyle, they couldn't just deny him that. It was possibly the only things the humans understood about Rhodia; the importance of education.

So he continued to attend university, and he continued to hide who he was. He had to, otherwise he'd probably get himself killed. He was hated. People didn't really say it, but he was. Years of trust in the monarchy ruined by him and he definitely knew it. They'd rip him apart if they could for what he'd done to them.

Charlie sighed, and lay dejectedly back on his bed. As much as he wanted to be here, sometimes he doubted if it was the right thing to be alive. The people would be happier if he were dead. The humans would definitely be happier if he just jumped off a palace balcony. That was probably their aim for him. But he couldn't do that. If he was dead, there was absolutely no one to stop the humans from doing whatever they wanted with his country and his people.

Really, he should be at the palace. He should be sacrificing himself and his last chance at happiness for your people, he knew that. He definitely knew that. But he was selfish. He wanted to do something for himself for once. He wanted to study what he was interested in and ignore the duties he was meant to take responsibility for. He wanted to make friends for the first time in his life. He wanted to feel joy. He would even take feeling angry or stressed as long as it wasn't about his current princely situation.

He wanted this, and he wasn't about to let anyone take this chance away from him.

Making a decision, Charlie stood from his desk (comfortable, but next time he went to the castle he had to bring a pillow or two back) and put his notebooks back in his bag. He wanted to have friends and the obvious person to talk to was his lovely next door neighbour.

Without thinking, he left the room and went to Matteusz's door, knocking before he even started to wonder what kind of excuse he could make to the boy to justify his intrusion. As the door opened, the only thing Charlie could think of was books. "Hello," he said, inclining his head a little. Matteusz did the same and also raised his hand in a way Charlie had seen humans do.

He looked quite surprised to see Charlie there, as if he was unfamiliar with the idea of making friends through social contact. Unless humans didn't do this sort of thing, but Charlie certainly thought they did. "I, ah." He really should have thought this out before knocking on the door, Charlie realised. "I was going to go to the library to get some books. Do you want me to show you how a Rhodian library works?" He knew for a fact they worked differently to human libraries.

"Oh...sure." Matteusz smiled, the surprised look fading a little. "Let me get my bag." He vanished off into his room for a moment, and then emerged with a shoulder bag slung over his body. "I've lived in Rhodia for a year and a half now," he said, and Charlie wanted to sink into the ground to get away from the conversation. Of course. That was why he knew a few Rhodian customs. "But I will go to the library with you anyway. Do not look so embarrassed." The easy smile turned into a teasing grin, just momentarily, and then Matteusz strode off down the corridor, leaving Charlie to follow.

"I apologise, I didn't realise you'd lived here so long!" He said. He should have known, he should have been able to tell. "I should not have presumed. Forgive me."

"Is forgiven. No need to apologise." Matteusz didn't seem to care at all about his blunder, which...made a nice change. Usually there were about twenty people attacking him viciously every time he said something even remotely incorrect.

"Oh, I..." He hadn't been expecting the forgiveness and now he had no idea as to what to say. How he'd managed to keep his country's diplomacy afloat was a mystery to him.

"You're still blushing," Matteusz said, looking down at him with that same grin. Charlie wondered how he was supposed to not blush in a situation like this. It was a huge humiliation that should have been entirely avoidable.

Still unable to think of a response, he just laughed. He knew he was blushing. He was still blushing because he was still embarrassed. He didn't understand why that was anything strange.

They walked in silence for maybe thirty seconds, and then Matteusz spoke again. "Humans generally blush around people that they are attracted to." Charlie knew he was teasing, but still, he couldn't help the indignant squeak that left his mouth.

"We're a different species," he said, deciding not to mention that the human scum were trying to get him to marry some important human and have children with her (which was, frankly, disgusting).

"Was just teasing," Matteusz assured him, reaching out to pat Charlie on the arm. "Are you already with someone?"

Charlie wanted to tell Matteusz the truth, for some reason. He wanted to tell him that if he ever dated people he wanted to be with, the humans would call him impotent and then they'd probably kill him. But he bit his lip and didn't say that, and just shook his head instead. Matteusz made a thoughtful sort of noise. "Me neither."

"I can't imagine there's much choice here," he said. A year and a half, probably living around minimal humans. It gave him a slight satisfaction that his country had managed to keep so many regular humans away.

"Not much choice at all." Matteusz laughed. "Everyone is either straight or hates your people, or both."

Charlie caught himself before he joked that he was guilty of hating Matteusz's people. "What's straight?" He asked instead. It sounded like human slang.

Matteusz gave him an odd look, like that was a question he should really know the answer to. "It means attracted to the opposite sex. Most humans are, I'm not."

"Opposite sex?" He had noticed an absence of variety in humans, but he hadn't imagined they had just two sexes. He thought it was just their obsession with conformity. "Isn't that an oxymoron?"

"Sorry. I forget you Rhodians are different...humans are mostly one of two sexes. Very few exceptions. Straight is boys liking girls and girls liking boys." Matteusz sounded like this was something he'd had to explain a few times.

"Humans are backwards." Charlie held himself back from spitting onto the ground. How was it possible to only have two sexes? That was insanely limiting.

"You think that is stupid?" Matteusz sighed. "Some people, like my parents, think people who like people of the same sex are evil."

"Wait, what?" Charlie stopped to look at Matteusz in the eye, immediately wanting to lower them again. He felt silly like this because he was so much shorter. "You're leading me on."

"Nope." Matteusz didn't stop walking, and Charlie had to jog a few steps to catch up again. "Humans are that backwards. Sorry to be the one to break that news to you."

"I knew you were bad from your obsession with eugenics," Charlie said, lowering his voice just in case. You never knew in this kind of place. "But that's...nuts."

"Tell me about it. My parents paid for my flight here just so they wouldn't have to see me date boys anymore." Matteusz kicked a pebble on the ground, and it skittered across the floor at alarming velocity. "And now there are no boys to date."

Charlie shrugged. That wasn't his problem, honestly. He didn't care at all whether or not Matteusz was in a happy relationship. He was human, not even one of his people, not even a citizen yet.

"I would date a Rhodian, but they all hate me," he continued. "Cannot blame them. We humans did awful things to you." Charlie nodded. He didn't want to say any more and give anything away. He also didn't want to offend Matteusz, though he didn't know why. He usually didn't care about offending unimportant humans.

They were silent until they reached the library, at which point Charlie opened his mouth to start explaining how everything worked and then shut it again, remembering that Matteusz already knew how things worked.

"Do not worry," Matteusz said with a laugh. "I do not mind being told how it works. With how I look, it is easy to forget I know Rhodia."

"I won't insult your knowledge by explaining simple things to you," Charlie said firmly. "What books are you here for?"

"I need some books to introduce me to Quill history," Matteusz said. He knew of the Quill, of course, they came up in all Rhodian history and it would have been impossible for Matteusz to avoid them, but he apparently knew little of their personal history.

"And do you know where they are?" Matteusz considered it, and then shook his head. Charlie was just a little bit pleased that he had something to do. He liked feeling useful, and he liked Matteusz. Maybe they'd gotten off on the wrong foot (they definitely had), but he thought he'd fixed it now. He wouldn't be totally alone here, and hopefully it wouldn't just be an extension of the misery he felt at home. "I'll help you," he said, and he just prayed that Matteusz could help him in return.


End file.
